1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information delivery system for delivering the content of multimedia information, an information processing apparatus for use in the information delivery system, an information processing method, and a recording medium recording the multimedia information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In one of known systems, a server transmits audio data as a musical composition to a user, delivering the musical composition to a recording medium of the user or an audio player having a recording medium therewithin. Such a system is a music delivery system.
Besides the audio data as the musical composition, information transmitted and received in the music delivery system can include image data such as of a jacket of the music record or other media, and text data such as lyrics. Types of data to be transmitted and received are not only audio data but also a content including the image data and the text data.
To create these pieces of multimedia information, a description language called HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is widely used.
In the HTML, information is presented in a file which created using an identifier called a tag delimited by symbols <, > as shown in FIG. 15. The content and meaning of the tag is fixed in the HTML. Referring to FIG. 15, for example, a link is made to an image data file having a file name 20silly.gif as an external reference file to present the image data in a desired location by describing a tag <IMG SRC=“20 silly.gif” width=100 HEIGHT”=100>.
An audio (voice) data file, although not shown in FIG. 15, is prepared as an external reference file, and a predetermined tag is used in the description. A link is made to the audio data file to reproduce it.
A music delivery system using the multimedia information is now considered.
The top priority is to transmit the audio data as musical composition data as fast and precise as possible. The music delivery system works even if other types of information in association with the audio data are transmitted later.
When the HTML is employed for a multimedia information file for music delivery, an HTML description file and musical composition data as an external reference file of the HTML description file are transmitted. The music delivery is thus based on the assumption that not only the musical composition data but also the HTML description file is transmitted.
When a single multimedia information file of the HTML format linked to a plurality of pieces of musical composition data is transmitted, each of these pieces of musical composition data needs to be individually linked to the HTML description file.
The music delivery service in practice requires that a number of pieces of musical composition data be transmitted in association with a single multimedia information file. The number of pieces of musical composition data linked to a single HTML description file becomes quite large.
On the delivery side of the musical composition data, the creation of multimedia information becomes difficult and troublesome accordingly. The possibility of the generation of software bugs increases, thereby lowering work efficiency on the delivery side.
The receiver side of the musical composition data is required to read the HTML description file from the header thereof and successively interpret the tags to search for a target musical composition data. Such a process is time-consuming and burdensome on the receiver side. Besides the HTML, XML (Extensible Markup Language) is known as a description language, which is used in cooperation with the HTML as a Web page. The same is true of the XML.
It is not practically appropriate that a service for delivering a large amount data such as many pieces of musical composition data is carried out using the multimedia information file composed of the description file and the external reference file.